Sam Rayburn
Sam Rayburn was born in Roane County, Tennessee, United States on January 6th, 1882 and is the Politician. At the age of 79, Sam Rayburn biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (January 6, 1882 – November 16, 1961) was an American politician who served as the 43rd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
He was a 25-term congressman, representing Texas's 4th congressional district as a Democrat from 1913 to 1961.
He holds the record for the longest tenure as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving for over 17 years (among three separate stints). Born in Roane County, Tennessee, Rayburn moved with his family to Windom, Texas in 1887.
After a period as a school teacher, Rayburn won election to the Texas House of Representatives and graduated from the University of Texas School of Law.
He won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1912 and continually won re-election until his death in 1961, serving 25 terms all totaled.
Rayburn was a protege of John Nance Garner and a mentor to Lyndon B. Johnson. Rayburn was elected House Majority Leader in 1937 and was elevated to the position of Speaker of the House after the death of William B. Bankhead.
He led the House Democrats from 1940 to 1961, and served as Speaker of the House from 1940 to 1947, 1949 to 1953, and 1955 to 1961.
He also served twice as House Minority Leader (1947 to 1949 and 1953 to 1955) during periods of Republican House control.
Rayburn preferred to work quietly in the background and successfully used his power of persuasion and charisma to get his bills passed due to having to navigate the post-Joseph Cannon era when each individual committee chairman had immense power in the House.
He refused to sign the Southern Manifesto and was influential in the construction of U.S. Route 66.
He served as Speaker until his death in 1961, and was succeeded by John W. McCormack.
Early life
Rayburn was born in Roane County, Tennessee, on January 6, 1882. He was the son of Martha Clementine (Waller) and William Marion Rayburn, a former Confederate cavalryman. The Rayburn family descended from Ulster Scots immigrants who emigrated to the Province of Pennsylvania in 1750. In 1887, the Rayburn family moved to a 40-acre cotton farm near Windom, Texas. Rayburn grew up in poverty as he, his nine siblings, and his parents all participated in running the farm. Toiling in the fields made Rayburn determined to get a good education and help the poor and downtrodden.
Rayburn went to co-educational East Texas Normal College (now Texas A&M University–Commerce) in Commerce in 1900 with $25 (around $750 in 2020) that his father saved up to help take care of his first few months of college expenses. To help cover tuition and room and board, Rayburn rang the school bell to signal the end of classes and swept out Commerce's public school buildings, earning $3 a month. Rayburn obtained his teaching credentials before completing his bachelor of science degree, and earned additional income by teaching in the public school of Greenwood, a small community in Hopkins County. He graduated in 1903 in a class of 13 (9 men and 4 women) and taught school for two years.
Personal life and death
Rayburn married once, to Metze Jones (1901–1982), sister of Texas Congressman and Rayburn friend Marvin Jones. He had corresponded with her for nine years, and at the time of the wedding Rayburn was 45 and Jones was 26. Their 1927 marriage ended after only a few months; biographers D. B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon guessed that Rayburn's work schedule and long bachelorhood, combined with the couple's differing views on alcohol, contributed to the rift. The court's divorce file in Bonham, Texas, has never been located, and Rayburn avoided speaking of his brief marriage. In 2014, the Associated Press reported the existence of a letter Rayburn wrote to Metze after her father died in June 1926.
In 2016, the Plano Star Courier published a story about an article in the October 2016 issue of Southwestern Historical Quarterly (a scholarly journal published by the Texas State Historical Association) profiling Sam Rayburn's "lady friend" who was a woman named Margaret Fallon (Peggy) Palmer, the widow of former U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, and her close relationship with Rayburn.
In 1956, Rayburn was baptized by Elder H. G. Ball in the Primitive Baptist Church, also known as Old Line Baptist or Hard Shell Baptist Church.
One of his greatest, most painful regrets was that he did not have a son, or as he was quoted as saying in The Path to Power, Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, "a towheaded boy to take fishing".
Rayburn died of pancreatic cancer in 1961 at the age of 79 and was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. His funeral in Bonham, Texas was a large spectacle attended by numerous VIPs, most notably President John F. Kennedy, former presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, and vice president (and future president) Lyndon B. Johnson. Hundreds of members of Congress and numerous other dignitaries attended the funeral. President Kennedy was an honorary pallbearer. By the time of his death, he had served as Speaker for nearly twice as long as any of his predecessors.
Rayburn was a descendant of George Waller, a Revolutionary War militia officer from Henry County, Virginia, and was an honorary president of the Colonel George Waller Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.